


Out of Spite

by Benny_IsA_Dog



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Conversations, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Post-Season/Series 03, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23614279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benny_IsA_Dog/pseuds/Benny_IsA_Dog
Summary: Post-series 3.  After the perpetrators of the rape case are charged, Ellie and Hardy find Daisy Hardy's picture on a confiscated phone. Ellie doesn't let him worry about her alone.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Daisy Hardy, Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Comments: 10
Kudos: 73





	Out of Spite

**Author's Note:**

> Content warning: this is all about sexism. 
> 
> Spoilers for series 3.

Ellie was at her desk in CID when an automatic email from the Digital Forensics department arrived in her inbox. The file extraction from Michael Lucas's phone had finished, and the results had been uploaded to the station’s shared server.

She'd finished most of her lunch, and the greasy cardboard that had contained her chips was still resting in front of her keyboard. She opened the system’s file navigator, sipping from the fountain cola that had come with the combo meal.

There were gigabytes and gigabytes of media that had been pulled from the phone, made up mostly of video files, with a lesser portion from photos and readouts of emails and text conversations. Ellie could only hope to get a general impression of what Lucas had kept on the device, and, later, Digital Forensics would do a more thorough search of each file for anything pertinent to Lucas’s arrest-- records of the attack on Trish Winterman, communications with Leo Humphries, or other evidence of illicit behavior. 

Lucas surely would’ve replaced the stash of porn just as quickly as Tom, if not quicker. Right after lunch, Ellie didn’t quite have the stomach to look through the videos. Later, maybe. Instead, she opened the folder of photos that had been taken with the phone’s camera. A quick scan through showed only a handful of snapshots containing nothing notable. Lucas hadn’t seemed to have used the camera often. 

Ellie turned her attention to the photos that had come to the phone externally. The file names were mostly strings of numbers and letters, but occasionally one featured a rather rude description of the picture's content. She sighed, and opened one about a third of the way into the folder. The picture was of a young woman, maybe early to mid twenties, completely naked and draped over a bright red couch. The picture had clearly been taken in a studio. The woman had been carefully posed, and every angle of her body was immaculately lit to show whatever the viewer may be interested in. It was all very commercial, and, while it made Ellie's eyebrows shoot up a fraction of an inch, it wasn't at all suspicious. 

She browsed through the collection, hitting the "next" arrow on the navigation controls. All of the photos in the series were similar, pin-up type shots-- clearly staged scenarios that Lucas had collected. As she skimmed, Hardy strode out of his office but was intercepted by PC Williams on the other side of her desk. Williams was notoriously long winded, so Ellie made an exaggerated eyeroll over Williams' shoulder. Hardy steadfastly ignored her and remained concentrated on whatever Williams was reporting.

Woman after woman went by on Ellie's screen, but nothing suggestive of criminal activity appeared. Ellie was about to close the folder when a distinctly different picture appeared. The setting seemed to be a normal bedroom, not a photography set, and the subject, while naked like the others, was visible from only the waist up. The awkward angle suggested the woman had taken the picture herself. Ellie glanced at the woman's face--light brunette hair, looked younger than the others, and looked like…

Daisy Hardy.

Ellie startled. "Shit!" 

Her soda cup slipped in her hand and hit the edge of the desk. Belatedly, she fumbled to catch it but instead knocked it sideways. The lid dislodged and soda spilled across the desk and onto her lap before she righted it. 

" _Shit!_ " she repeated.

"What's that?"

Ellie looked up in alarm. Hardy had turned at her exclamation to look towards her monitor. Distressingly, he started coming around the desk for a better view.

"No! Nothing!" Ellie grabbed for the mouse, but Hardy beat her hand away and took it from her as he rounded the desk. She jumped to her feet in a poorly thought out attempt to block the screen with her body, even as his eyes scanned across the photo.

He stiffened. Ellie rammed her hand under his, seizing the now-forgotten mouse, and hurriedly closed the entire navigation program. Hardy turned to her, eyes wide and mouth open. Shock and confusion passed across his face before being overtaken by an uncensored fear. It made him look disconcertingly vulnerable.

"I told you not to come over here!" Ellie blurted.

Her voice came out as an uncontrolled, high-pitched shout. The remaining murmur of workday chatter-- which, she realized, had already deceased in volume--went silent. She glanced around to find everyone in the CID frozen in their places, staring at them with a variety of apprehensive expressions.

Hardy looked up, noticing their audience. He hardened his face into one of the more terrifying scowls Ellie had ever seen and spun away. He stormed back toward his office, making Williams skitter out of his way. Ellie jumped to follow close behind, ducking through the office door. Hardy made to slam it in front of her, but she caught it with her shoulder.

"Christ, don't take my arm off!" she said, pushing herself through.

He went to his desk, barely glancing over his shoulder. "Get out, Miller!" 

Instead, Ellie closed the door behind them and went to the window that looked over CID. DC Smith had the misfortune of making eye contact with her, but, at the withering look she gave him, he snapped his head down to the files in his hands. Ellie shut the blinds, blocking him and the CID from view, and then repeated it for each portion of the windows, leaving her and Hardy cocooned in the relative privacy of the office. Hardy was standing beside his chair, like he'd started to sit down but couldn't manage to complete the motion. He didn't look at her, instead glaring at a fixed point on the wall.

"Lucas's phone?" he asked, words clipped.

Yes, the rapist's phone. Ellie swallowed. "Yeah. I forgot it'd be on there."

"Right." He crossed his arms and clenched his hands into fists. His knuckles turned white.

Ellie crossed her arms to mirror him, keeping her face impassive. "Are you alright?"

Hardy glared at her sharply. "He shouldn't've had that."

That wasn't an answer. "No, he shouldn't've, " she said, carefully. 

"He invaded her privacy and degraded her--he shouldn't get to do that!" He pointed out the window towards her computer. "Pieces of shite like him and _Leo_ _goddamn Humphreys_ shouldn't even get to _think_ about her!"

"No."

Hardy turned and pushed his hand across the desk, sweeping files, pens, and the phone receiver tumbling to the floor. He looked about to do the same to his computer, but he pulled his hand back just before it made contact.

Ellie took a step and leaned over to put her face in his line of sight. "We did catch those 'shits', sir," she said, raising her eyebrows. "So that's a bit of a win, isn't it?" She meant to be encouraging, but the attempt felt hollow.

He turned to her, face twisted in disgust. "But they're not the only ones out there, are they?" he spat, "They're barely the beginning! The goddamn world's crawling with misogynists and perverts, and half the bloody things those people say or do aren't even against the law! We can't lock them all up!"

Ellie sighed. "Yes, I know," she said.

"I can't stand it-- one of them is going to hurt Daisy in one way or another!" Hardy looked at Ellie earnestly, almost imploringly, "All the horrible shit women deal with-- I can't _fathom_ how they can live in that all the time and still go about their lives! I'm _terrified_ for her--and it's bloody paralyzing!"

He ran his hand through his hair. For a few moments, they stood watching each other as his heavy breaths gradually calmed to a slower tempo. Finally, he pressed his face into his hands and leaned against the desk, looking more hollow and wrung-out than Ellie had seen in ages.

"Well, sir, I've made it this far mostly through power of anger," said Ellie. She'd long ago stopped taking anyone's shit and spent years building her bristly, angry exterior. It had partly shaped her career trajectory into a D.S--someone would doubt her, as the woman on the force, so she'd show them up and prove them wrong. She'd been determined to succeed to spite everyone and everything. But that anger had been tested over and over again during the Winterman case, and it had left her feeling smaller and more fragile than she was used to. She'd begun second guessing her decisions to walk home on any given night, or to go on an interview by herself. She hated it. "I can tell you, though, it all does get rather exhausting."

Hardy grunted, but didn't look up, instead staring down at the mess of papers on the floor. Ellie crossed the office and sank onto the couch under the windows. Eventually, Hardy followed and dropped heavily beside her, sagging into the cushions. The sounds of keyboards and interlaced conversation drifted from the main room. 

"Have you told Daisy who the rapist was?" asked Ellie.

"Aye, a few days ago." 

"Hmm. What did she think about that?"

Hardy shook his head, frowning "I don't know," he said, "She didn't say much, didn't want to talk about it. Just that she was glad we caught him. She never wants to talk about these sorts of things--important things. She does that when she's upset, she keeps people out. She sort of... shuts down."

He sat forward and dragged his hand across his face. Ellie waited. She redirected the pressure of her overt attention by examining the soda splatter on her trousers. 

"You know," said Hardy, "she seemed to be doing pretty well here, before all this happened. I'm not letting her leave now, but I think she still wants to, some days." He paused. "I don't want her to feel like this--I don't want her to be scared into having anything less than she deserves by arseholes who think they can do what they want to her. Christ, it's not bloody fair."

"No. It's not, " said Ellie. The edges of the soda stain were beginning to dry. No, it wasn't bloody fair. Daisy was only eighteen, and the world was already turning on her. Ellie looked back on her teenage years as an unpleasant time, dominated by the process of growing into an adult body and mind she hadn't understood yet. It was around then that she'd first truly appreciated that some people considered her inferior. If something bad like this had happened to her at Daisy's age--before she'd built up her wall of indignation and fury--what would she have done? Ellie had always had people around her that rooted for her: her mother, Lucy, teachers, neighbors, lifelong friends. But if she hadn't had all that, if she'd been as isolated as Daisy was now, would she have doubted herself enough to want to leave a new town and home?

"Have you told Tess?" she asked.

"I told her about--" he waved his hand vaguely, "--all of it when I found out, but Daisy doesn't want to talk to her about it, either. They've barely been speaking for months."

Ellie frowned. That was disappointing. Tess seemed like someone useful to have in reserve.

"Has Daisy talked to _anyone_ about this?" she asked.

"Chloe Latimer has been around to my house a few times."

"Right, you mentioned that," said Ellie, "but Chloe's just a kid, too."

Hardy grunted but didn't answer. 

"I saw them together at the women's vigil, with Beth," she said. Daisy had seemed unsure of her place amongst the assembly of local women. She had stuck close to Chloe the few times Ellie had spotted her in the crowd. Afterwards, as Ellie came back from escorting Laura Benson to her car, Daisy had been standing with Hardy at the steps of the station. He'd reached out to her in a half-hug, but she'd pulled away from him, hands in her pockets, after only a second or two.

The memory left Ellie with an unacceptable sense of inefficacy. But what had she been hoping for? Did she want Daisy to be angry, like she was? For Daisy to be so hostile and hardened that nothing the world threw at her could reach her? That wasn't quite right. Ellie had made herself that way because she's had to, because she'd grown up in a culture that deliberately stacked the odds against her, and, later, because her life had been marred by miseries outside of her control. Maybe naively, she hoped that Daisy's life would be more forgiving.

There'd been an underlying tone of anger in the crowd at the vigil--an outrage that someone had hurt one of them and made the rest of them afraid. But there'd been more than that, too. A permeating sense of solidarity. The sea of women, standing together in a united front, had come to tell anyone and everyone that they wouldn't be intimidated or kept down. Ellie wanted Daisy to feel that. She wanted her to know that she wasn't alone, and that the people around her wouldn't let the arseholes and shits of the world control her.

Ellie stood up, shaking Hardy on the cushions.

"My offer still stands, you know," she said, "I could talk to her."

Hardy's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah?" 

Of course. She nodded sharply. 

"Yes. I'll set it up," she said. She'd need others to help, too. "I'll tell Beth, and she can tell Chloe, and then they can get Daisy there. That way, it won't feel like her father is trying to get her to do something, and they can be there, too." They'd be their own smaller--but just as formidable--united front. 

Hardy stared up at her, mouth open and brows furrowed. "What would you tell her?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. Haven't thought about it yet." Hundreds of women had stood in silence, phones shining in the streets. "What we say isn't really the important part, anyway." 

She waited as he considered her, his eyes carefully searching her face. He nodded slowly. "Right," he said.

She nodded back. "Good."

He looked at his hands, exhaling. "Good," he echoed quietly.

After a few more moments, Hardy got to his feet. His movements seemed less heavy than they'd been before. He crossed his arms, but his back and shoulders no longer looked so tense they might snap. Ellie went to the door, stopping and turning with her hand on the doorknob. 

"I think she'll be alright," she said. 

He grimaced. "You think so?" 

She'd make sure of it. "Yeah."

Hardy ducked his head. He took a deep breath before looking at her again. "Thank you, Miller."

Ellie gave him a reassuring smile as she opened the door. "Anytime, sir." 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated. It's how I know you all are out there.


End file.
